I was doing my Sunday morning webcrawl and found a quick note about the Spacefleet project, see below.

This is an announcement to readers that the Spacefleet Project, see Spacefleet Site is still running. Like many other similar efforts around the world, we are still trying to find funding, which is , of course, a very difficult thing to do for a project of this type. However, we are continuing, and have some hope of finding it.

Spacefleet Ltd. is a private limited company, based in England. We intend to take part in the forthcoming sub-orbital space tourism market by building and operating new spacecraft such as the SF-01, as shown here. Work on the Spacefleet Project has already started and we are looking for investors to work with us.

We are still here, and we intend to be here when Virgin Galactic starts its sub-orbital space flights, because when that happens, many people will come to realise that there is a space tourism industry, and that it makes money, and that it is not just for the extremely wealthy. We are still ready.

Earlier in the year Spacefleet Ltd was one of the supporters of the Royal Aeronautical Society Space Tourism conference, advertised earlier on this site.

The business plan for the Spacefleet EARL project is now attracting serious interest from some potential investors.

As the project progresses we expect to have much more to report, shortly. Meanwhile, some new artwork is being produce. Here are some examples:

Representatives of Spacefleet and our international collaborators will meet at the Space Conference in Dneproptrovsk, Ukraine in April (17th-19th) to discuss the project in finer detail.

It is also planned to have a flying model demonstrator of the EARL constructed, this, year, for research into its flying properties, controllability, and landing.

Quote:

Design work is progressing at Spacefleet on EARL, an unmanned suborbital RLV capable of lofting 100kg research payloads to an altitude of 100km and returning for a runway landing. New renders have been produced, and work is proceeding in conjunction with Czech, Ukrainian and Georgian partners

I think drones are a great starter for now, mainly because radiation is still a great problem for our bodies and robotics and programming have been advancing over the years. Also without humans on broad it would allow their weight to be used to haul more cargo to orbit and back.